There is an increasing interest in the creation of spatial atmosphere based on home entertainment and multimedia content. In order to create such an atmosphere, spatial distribution of peripheral equipment, including for example loudspeakers, lighting devices and possibly devices for vibration, air and scent effects, is required. There is often a multitude of peripherals involved in the atmosphere creation and ideally one would want to connect all these devices wirelessly and automatically, and make them function correctly without any active user configuration.
Traditionally, the link between a multimedia device and its peripherals is a wired connection. The setup of such a connection is often time-consuming and because of the multitude of components involved, it can be a complex process to make them all work properly. In wire-connected systems it is essential to connect the peripherals to the appropriate output of the atmosphere creation device, for example “left/front”, and then place them correctly in their corresponding positions. Should a change of position later be desired, a change of wire connection to a different output has to be performed. Moreover, the peripherals may be shared by more than one atmosphere creation device, for example a TV and a gaming console, and while the peripheral might be configured in a particular position (“left/front”) with respect to the TV, it might be configured in another position (“right/back”) with respect to the gaming console. This results in a non-intuitive configuration process lacking simplicity.
In the area of illumination control, a method for wireless illumination control based on modulation of emitted light with unique identifiers is described in WO2006111930. In this disclosure, a single light source may be used to function both as a lighting source and a modulated light source. The modulated light source emits uniquely modulated light and a sensing device is adapted to sense the modulated light. Lighting units of which the sensing device senses modulated light are identified by the modulation, i.e. identifier or code, encoded in their modulated light. The sensing device measures the intensity of the modulated light from the identifying lighting unit. The lighting sources are controlled dependent on control data which comprises measuring values of measured light intensities.